He spoke in front of the NATO allies at the alliance’s new headquarters, and called them out for not meeting their financial commitments. For some reason, he thinks this a book club or something.

He said:

“Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they are supposed to be paying for their defense. This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States. 2% is the bare minimum for confronting today’s very real and very vicious threats. If NATO countries made their full and complete contributions, then NATO would be even stronger than it is today, especially from the threat of terrorism.”

Now here's the tea... every President since Truman has pledged support for Article 5--that the United States will defend Europe. What trump did today was a mess.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

For a while, he has been pushing this Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory. The story claims that Seth was DNC mole passing info to Wikileaks and later killed for it. The story had several holes in it, but that didn't stop Hannity. He kept the story going, until Fox News jumped in.

They released this statement

On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed.

We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted.

So, Mike Flynn knows he's a mess and plans on continuing this notion. According to AP, Mike will defy the Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena for documents on the trump-Russia probe and possibly invoke the 5th Amendment.

AP reports

That’s according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private interactions between Flynn and the committee.Flynn’s decision comes less than two weeks after the committee issued a subpoena for Flynn’s documents as part of the panel’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

This story broke yesterday, but The Washington Post found the good stuff here.

From WP

A month before Donald Trump clinched the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — made a politically explosive assertion in a private conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders: that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately interjected, stopping the conversation from further exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the Republicans present to secrecy.

Back in April, Charlottesville City Council voted to get rid of the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee statue that stands in their local park. There was an injunction that prevents the city from doing so for about six months. However, guess who had a problem with it? You're right, a bunch of haters.

So over the weekend, a few dozen torch-wielding protesters showed up in the Charlottesville’s Lee Park to protest. These fools were chanting “You will not replace us,” “Russia is our friend” and “Blood and soil.”

Blood and Soil (‘Blut und Boden’) was a very important philosophy for Nazi Germany. The issue of ‘blood and soil’ nearly split the Nazi Party after 1925 and was only resolved at the Bamberg Conference of 1926. One side of the Nazi Party wanted to emphasise the relationship between true Aryans and a rural life. Hitler believed that true Germans ‘came from the soil’ – that they had a family background based on farming and life in the countryside. However, men like Gregor and Otto Strasser wanted to move the party away from the belief in ‘Blut und Boden’ and move towards a policy of attracting more support in urban areas. The Strasser brothers were defeated on this issue and Hitler rallied his supporters around ‘Blut und Boden’ while Otto Strasser left to form his own party based outside of Germany. Gregor was murdered on the Night of the Long Knives.

Today’s job approval rating compares to a negative 40 – 56 percent approval rating in an April 19 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University and a negative 35 – 57 percent score April 4, his lowest approval rating since he became president.

The president is losing support among independent voters and groups which are important parts of his base. Approval ratings are:

-Negative 29 – 63 percent among independent voters, down from a negative 38 – 56 percent April 19;
-A split among white voters with no college degree, as 47 percent approve and 46 percent disapprove, compared to a 57 – 38 percent approval April 19;
-White men go from a 53 – 41 percent approval April 19 to a split today with 48 percent approving and 46 percent disapproving.

“There is no way to spin or sugarcoat these sagging numbers,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “The erosion of white men, white voters without college degrees and independent voters, the declaration by voters that President Donald Trump’s first 100 days were mainly a failure and deepening concerns about Trump’s honesty, intelligence and level headedness are red flags that the administration simply can’t brush away,” Malloy added.

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Days before he was fired, James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, asked the Justice Department for a significant increase in money and personnel for the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election, according to three congressional officials who were briefed on his request.

Mr. Comey asked for the resources last week from Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who wrote the Justice Department’s memo that was used to justify the firing of Mr. Comey this week, the officials said.

Mr. Comey then briefed members of Congress on the meeting in recent days, telling them about his meeting with Mr. Rosenstein, who is the most senior law enforcement official supervising the Russia investigation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from that inquiry because of his close ties to the Trump campaign and his undisclosed meetings with the Russian ambassador.

The timing of Mr. Comey’s request is not clear-cut evidence that his firing was related to the Russia investigation. But it is certain to fuel bipartisan criticism that President Trump appeared to be meddling in an investigation that had the potential to damage his presidency.

The F.B.I. declined to comment. But Sarah Isgur Flores, the Justice Department spokeswoman, said “the idea that he asked for more funding” for the Russia investigation was “totally false.” She did not elaborate.

This is going to historic, once the truth gets out. I mean, this is so obvious.

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey late Tuesday on the recommendation of the attorney general and his top aide, who cited the bureau’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email while secretary of state.

“Today, President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office,” according to a White House statement. “President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.”

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has revived a damages lawsuit against her. Here's more:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a damages lawsuit against Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who in 2015 refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples because it conflicted with her Christian beliefs.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said a lower court judge erred in finding that damages claims by David Ermold and David Moore became moot, after a new state law last July excused clerks like Davis, from Rowan County, from having to sign marriage license forms.

While the couple eventually did get a license, a three-judge appeals court panel said they could sue over Davis’ initial refusal to grant one, after the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2015 said the Constitution guaranteed a right to same-sex marriage.

President Donald Trump has invited conservative leaders to the White House on Thursday for what they expect will be the ceremonial signing of a long-awaited—and highly controversial—executive order on religious liberty, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.

Two senior administration officials confirmed the plan, though one cautioned that it hasn’t yet been finalized, and noted that lawyers are currently reviewing and fine-tuning the draft language. Thursday is the National Day of Prayer, and the White House was already planning to celebrate the occasion with faith leaders.

The signing would represent a major triumph for Vice President Mike Pence—whose push for religious-freedom legislation backfired mightily when he served as governor of Indiana—and his allies in the conservative movement.

“I was at the Utah Shakespeare Festival and I was doing Romeo and Juliet and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in rep., and I remember there was someone there who was a hair and makeup artist who I found really inspiring.I thought, If this person can live their truth, what am I doing? I was actually in the middle of doing sit-ups, because I needed some kind of physical release. And I was dating a girl in the company at the time. I wrote a letter to my parents. I would have lost my sense of direction if I tried to do it in person. There was radio silence for a long, long time, at least six months. And then I came home and it was then the blowup that I’d always feared. But we got that out of the way and we got down to the business of figuring out how to love each other. It was a struggle. It’s a struggle for anybody to take their paradigms and their set of beliefs and their set of understandings and completely flip the script. So I’m empathetic towards everyone, and my family is so loving.My mom just asked me, [my husband] Simon, and the boys to go down and speak to her women’s group in Houston so, you know, I’m here to tell people it can get better. Because I had so many people in my life saying, ‘You need to get rid of all expectations — you need to cut them out.’ But I was like, ‘They’re my family.’”

The Stuff

Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.